|
Drug Rehabilitation: A
New Perspective
FASE
Report
|
"The use of
morphine in the place of alcohol is but a choice of evils, and by far the
lesser" Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic. 1889
"Heroin will take
the place of morphine without its disagreeable qualities." New York Medical
Journal. 1901
"Some (heroin)
addicts readily admit that they prefer methadone as their drug of abuse"
International Journal of Pharmacology. 1975
"Clonodine has
recently gained prominence as chemotherapeutic agent for the detoxification of
individuals dependent upon…methadone." NIDA Treatment Research Monograph.
"Research on the Treatment of Narcotic Addiction. 1983
The war against drugs, now well into its third decade, is faltering.
The disturbingly high rate of recidivism, even after repeated treatments, has
been unchanged by the panoply of strategies implemented at federal and state
levels. The fact that they have failed to prevent a majority of drug users from
returning to their addictive behavior has led some experts to conclude that
addiction is incurable.
A review of the
literature regarding existing drug rehabilitation techniques reveals many
uncertainties. In fact, none of the prevalent approaches to treatment has been
conclusively established to be reliable. Success rates as low as 33%, not
substantially higher than those anticipated from no treatment at all or
treatment with placebos, are generally considered to be very good.
In view of this, it is surprising that such hazardous measures as
electric shock, drug-induced nausea, and chemically-introduced respiratory
failure continue in current use. The application of such "aversion therapy"
techniques has been particularly discouraging. "Behavioral Therapies for
Substance Abuse," published in 1985 in the International Journal of Addictions,
examined more than two decades of research in the use of behavioral
interventions for the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse. The authors
concluded, "none of the studies using chemical or electrical stimuli with drug
abusers has demonstrated physiological evidence of conditioned aversion."
The insistence on
the use of chemicals to handle chemical abuse is so ingrained that NIDA
currently defines drug detoxification as "planned withdrawal from drug
dependency supported by the use of a prescribed medication."
FASE Associate Dr.
Bernard Rimland (see "Associated Update"), himself a psychologist, is convinced
that psychotherapy has proved equally ineffective as a means of resolving drug
abuse. "Psychotherapy has not demonstrated value in any sort of disorder," he
says. "Not depression, not delinquency, not schizophrenia, not neurosis, not
phobias, nothing. It's absolutely worthless, as far as all the research goes,
and yet it's a very common component of so many drug and alcohol treatment
programs."
The use of comparatively
"benign" drugs as a means of breaking an addiction to dangerous drugs has also
proved to be frustrating, as the journal citings referenced above illustrate.
Repeatedly the intended medicine has itself become a substance of abuse.
For example, the usefulness of methadone in reducing drug cravings
remains questionable. A study completed this year by the General Accounting
Office (GAO) found that between one-third and one-half of the patients at 15
methadone clinics continued to use heroin, cocaine, and other illegal drugs
while receiving methadone. Nonetheless, the insistence on the use of chemicals
to handle chemical abuse is so ingrained that the National Institute on Drug
Abuse (NIDA) currently defines drug detoxification as "planned withdrawl from
drug dependency supported by the use of a prescribed medication."
More than 6 million Americans are estimated to require treatment for
drug abuse problems. New approaches to treatment are urgently needed.
An increasing number of researchers are moving away from a reliance on
Pavlovian conditioning techniques such as aversion therapy, and questioning the
advisability of using drugs to combat drugs. They have begun to examine the
biochemical imbalances, which are created by drug abuse, and to develop means
of treating them with nutrients rather than further medication. Promising
research is also being done regarding the use of detoxification - in a more
complete and accurate sense of the word, the elimination of accumulated drug
residues from body tissue - as a treatment approach.
Dr. Rimland is convinced
that a nutritional approach will prove to be as effective in treating drug
problems as it has been found to be in resolving disorders such as autism and
schizophrenia. "If there's any approach that's going to work," he says, "it's
going to be changing the body chemistry using original equipment, like vitamins
and fatty acids, amino acids, minerals and so forth."
Although not always
widely acknowledged, support for the use of nutritional supplements to combat
drug and alcohol dependence has been accumulating for several decades. The use
of the amino acid glutamine in the treatment of alcoholism was described in the
literature as long ago as 1957. Nutrients such as niacin ( vitamin B3 ), zinc,
magnesium, and vitamin B1, among others, have also been reported to be
effective means of treating substance abuse. Bill W. the founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous advocated the use of vitamin B3 in the treatment of alcoholism.
FASE Associate Dr. Joseph Beasley is a member of the American Medical
Society on Alcoholism and Other Drug Dependencies, and Medical Director of
Brunswick House, the largest private alcoholism treatment facility in New York
State. "A wide-ranging treatment protocol, with a strong nutritional component,
results in comfortable abstinence for more than 70% of our patients with very
low attrition," he says, "We have observed this kind of success even in
patients cross addicted with drugs, a condition we find in 40% of those we
treat.
The accumulation of drug residues in the adipose tissue is a
consequence of drug use, which is not addressed by most treatment programs.
Once lodged in fatty tissues, drug residues may subsequently be released into
the blood. Some researchers believe that this ongoing exposure could be the
basis for the "flashback" phenomenon, and contribute to continued cravings for
drugs.
To examine the phenomenon of drug storage and to determine the extent
to which true drug "detoxification" is possible. FASE associates have
endeavored to track body burdens of commonly used drugs. A 1982 study examined
the presence of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) and its metabolites in
the blood, urine, fat, and sweat of persons undergoing treatment with Hubbard's
detoxification method. (It is noteworthy that although a number of studies have
demonstrated the method to be an effective procedure for reducing body burdens
of commonly encountered environmental compounds, its developer, L. Ron Hubbard,
originally conceived it to alleviate problems associated with drug
accumulation.)
An increasing number of
researchers are questioning the advisability of using drugs to combat drugs.
Analysis of samples taken
before and after detoxification verified the presence of the compounds, as well
as their reduction at the completion of detoxification. Body fat was shown to
be the major storage compartment for marijuana, with levels in fat tissue up to
80 times the level in the blood. An additional finding was that among the
components of THC found, the hydroxy-metabolite was the most predominant.
Earlier studies have demonstrated the hydroxy-metabolite to be many times more
potent than THC itself, and more likely to enter the brain.
Additional
research suggests strongly that cocaine, diazepam (Valium), and PCP ("Angel
Dust") also store in fat deposits of the body, resulting in a slow, prolonged
release of drug residues into the plasma long after the discontinuation of drug
use. (Fate and Distribution of Cocaine, Diazepam, Phencyclidine (PCP) and THC
(Marijuana) A Technical Review, FASE. August. 1985.)
In order to further
investigate the relationship between the reduction compounds accumulated in
body fat and future drug use, a survey was recently made of persons with known
histories of drug abuse that have undertaken treatment with the Hubbard program
to assist in the recovery from addiction.
"This survey has
disclosed some intriguing information, says Dr. Shelley Beckmann. "The success
rate - as measured by continual abstinence from drug use for greater than a
year after detoxification - appears to be surprisingly high. We were able to
contact 45 of the 79 patients treated specifically for drug abuse over the last
six years. Of the 45, none now use cocaine, heroin, amphetamines,
antidepressants or hallucinogens, though 41 of them had used such drugs prior
to treatment."
"The alcohol recovery
rate is difficult to assess due to occasional social drinking," Dr. Beckmann
says. "Twenty-three of those surveyed no longer use alcohol, of the other 22,
13 commented that they drink infrequently." Significant improvements in family
relations were reported, with many of the patients recommending the program to
others with like difficulties.
These findings are of
particular interest, as current treatments for drug abuse do not employ methods
designed to actively remove drug residuals. "Although the persons interviewed
for this survey would be characterized as moderate drug users, neither crack
cocaine users nor heavy heroin users were included - the fact that such a large
number had not returned to drugs is significant." Says Dr. Beckmann. "The
findings definitely warrant further study to determine to what extent the
pattern will be duplicated among heavier users. If a correlation can be
established between reduction of adipose levels of drug residues and lowered
recidivism rates it may help to explain the failures of programs that do not
include detoxification as a component of rehabilitation.
(For a summary
of FASE studies regarding the use of Hubbard's methods in the reduction of
tissue levels of foreign compounds, see "Detoxification A Retrospective" in
FASE Reports Vol. No. 2. Winter 1988) |
Home | Program
Information | Cocaine Facts |
Other Drugs | Research |
Contact Us | News Photos
|Stories |
Links | About
Us
|
|
